The Double Deckers

This programme may mean nothing to you. But if you were around in the early seventies, and aged anything from 6 to about 14 at the time, it could well have left its mark. The Double Deckers was a vibrant children's show, screened in 1971 in the UK. The energy factor of its content was huge, demonstrated perfectly in the above clip. And the thing I have carried around all these years was the very last piece of each show - ''See you next weeeeeeeeeeeek !! '' It was a catchphrase that I have not forgotten ever since. DD was, simply, a great show.


Alas, it has not become a legend of children's TV culture, in part due to the fact that it consisted of just 17 episodes. It was however a much repeated show, especially during school holidays. Originally broadcast on Fridays, in the Crackerjack spot around 5 o'clock, I actually remember it more from Saturday mornings, which were presumably repeats. The Double Deckers stories were highly inventive, adventurous, funny, happy and cheerful. They contained lots of slapstick. But above all it was the camaraderie of it's characters that made it a winner. Set in a junk yard, the programme follows the exploits of seven children,whose den is a London double deck bus. There was plenty of resource from within the yard for them to use and the fast moving plots involved robots, goblins, ghosts and martians, as well as go-karts and a hovercraft on one occasion. The children were all shapes and sizes with varying talents and it was very easy to be envious of them. We all wanted to be a double decker and join them in their scrapes and tangles.

The characters were as follows : Scooper ( leader of the gang and played by Peter Firth), Brains ( Michael Audreson), Billie ( Gillian Bailey), Sticks (Bruce Clark), Doughnut ( Douglas Simmonds), Tiger ( the youngest child who also had a cuddly toy Tiger and was played by Debbie Russ ), and Spring ( Brinsley Forde). The only regular adult was Albert, a street cleaner ( Melvyn Hayes). I will not attempt to go into detail as to the part they each played. If you do not remember the show it will mean little to you. Watch the clip though and it could trigger happy memories. I must say there is a fantastic Double Deckers web site at http://www.thedoubledeckers.com/ which is an absolute credit to the people behind it.

One other great part of the show was it's music and dance pieces, which were crucial to the overall sunshine feeling of the programme. And many of the seventeen episodes featured some great comedy players of the day : Julian Orchard, Norman Vaughan, Bob Todd, Clive Dunn, Pat Coombs, Hugh Paddick, Frank Thornton, Sam Kydd and Jack Haig. Pretty impressive I should say. One episode also featured a very young Jane Seymour.

It is always interesting with child stars to see where they finished up. Peter Firth went on to be a film and stage actor (Pearl Harbor, Shadowlands, The Hunt For Red October, Letter To Brezhnev). Michael Audreson was in Young Winston playing the great Briton himself aged 13. Brinsley Forde is of course Brinsley Forde, lead singer of Aswad. And the lovely Gillian Bailey was in Follyfoot and the dramatic masterpiece Poldark (where she played the devoted and hard working Jinny Carter). Melvyn Hayes was the marvellous Bombardier 'Gloria' Beaumont in It Aint Half Hot Mum.

The Double Deckers was a fantastic little programme. It enjoyed success both here and in America. Although essentially British in spirit and filmed in and around Borehamwood, it was in fact a co production between the BBC and ABC (in America it had the slightly different title of Here Come The Double Deckers) and so is as much loved over the Atlantic as it is here. The gang also featured in a comic strip in Whizzer and Chips in 1971-1972 and an album of music from the series was also released. Blogging about The Double Deckers and researching for it has been a joy.

I can end in only one way : '' See you next weeeeeeeeeeeek''.